shakran

Well let's see. I don't remember the last time I put in an 8 hour day, I and many of my colleagues have gone overseas with the military and have run around with them while they were in combat - - I wasn't real worried about heavy traffic but I did keep my eye out for people shooting at me, I've also covered hurricanes (several weeks cooped up in a satellite truck intermixed with actually having to go out in the storm to do standups), I've covered gang wars in south america - my camera battery caught a bullet there and shut me down, which should tell you how close I've been to 'em. I've also covered military actions against the south american drug cartels, and we got shot at there too. So yeah, I think I know a little bit about danger. And by the way, you get to carry a gun and shoot back at the people shooting at you. I've only got a camera.
And it's not at all unusual for me to leave my wife (not girlfriend) for several weeks to go work on stories in some foriegn country somewhere.

Now you guys certainly face more than I do, but you're also trained for it much better than I am. I refuse to believe that having a female in the general vicinity would reduce a soldier's fighting effectiveness. It just won't happen unless the soldier is a hypersexual idiot. When the bullets fly, the last thing on anybody's mind is sex. I know I've never thought about screwing anyone when I was in the middle of a gunfight.

And the argument that the danger never ends, so you can't have distractions is total BS. I've also talked with plenty of soldiers returning from wars who have wanted to thank the people that sent them playstations and video games. If distractions are that bad, why are they allowed to play video games in their down time?

The simple answer is that having "distractions" (the real word is diversions) not only is not a bad thing for their downtime, but in fact it is a GOOD thing. If all they did was fight all day, then had to go back to their cot and stare at the tent wall and think about the terrible situation they're in, they'd be insane within the week.

There are plenty of distractions for the soldiers. Many of them have newborn kids they're thinking about. Many of them have families going to food shelves back home because their soldier pay isn't enough to cover the expenses of their families. Those are pretty hefty distractions. Maybe we should also outlaw any soldiers with families, since the distraction might reduce their combat efficiency.

I stand by my statement that all this is is people being afraid of something new.